DFID, DUBAI CARES AND EDUCATION CANNOT WAIT COME TOGETHER TO DELIVER EMERGENCY EDUCATION RESPONSES TO MORE THAN 500,000 CHILDREN AND YOUTH

11 April 2019, Washington – Education Cannot Wait, the United Kingdom’s Department of International Development (DFID) and Dubai Cares announced today new commitments of up to US$14 million in funds to support educational responses in the wake of the devastation from Cyclone Idai, which caused widespread destruction and displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Out of the total allocation, the Education Cannot Wait Global Trust Fund is providing US$7 million from its emergency reserve, DFID is providing up to US$5.2 million (4 million pounds) and Dubai Cares is providing US$2 million against the emergency education response facilitated by Education Cannot Wait and coordinated by the Education Cluster.

The funds will help restore education services for an estimated total of 500,000 children and youth.

With entire communities uprooted, missing or deceased caregivers, and schools destroyed or being used as temporary shelters, children across the cyclone-affected countries have had their education disrupted and are instead grappling with trauma. They are also vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and gender-based violence, and face the risk of cholera, among other scourges.

In Mozambique alone, the disaster has affected 1.8 million people and destroyed over 3,300 classrooms, leaving 263,000 children out-of-school. In Zimbabwe, close to 150 schools have been impacted, affecting an estimated 60,000 children. In Malawi, an estimated 200 schools have been impacted.

“We have all seen images of the terrible suffering and devastation caused by Cyclone Idai. The UK has, from the start, led the way in supporting the victims of this destruction and the fresh funding I am announcing will provide further help where it is most needed, right now,” said DFID’s Secretary of State, Penny Mordaunt.

The First Emergency Responses in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe will focus on supporting needs assessments, establishing temporary learning spaces, providing learning materials, supporting communities to get children back to school, giving teachers the tools, training and support they need to provide psycho-social support for the children in their care, and supporting governments to build back better.

“The loss of life, destruction and suffering that has resulted from Cyclone Idai is heartbreaking. Children, the most vulnerable victims of any disaster, are at the moment facing tremendous distress and uncertainty. Our partnership with Education Cannot Wait, allows us to quickly respond to this emergency and help reestablish access to education,” said Tariq Al Gurg, Chief Executive Officer at Dubai Cares.

Funds will be allocated against the emergency appeals launched by the governments of the affected-countries with the support of United Nations agencies and NGOs providing relief on the ground.

“A sudden and unexpected natural disaster of this magnitude causes immense human suffering. It demands an immediate response. For a child or adolescent, the losses are especially devastating,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait. “Unless education services are given priority, the suffering will be prolonged and cause deeper disruption and trauma in their lives. I am deeply grateful to DFID and Dubai Cares for setting a shining example: they moved swiftly together with ECW to provide a coordinated and speedy response in partnership with Ministries of Education, the affected communities, the Education Cluster, UN agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations to reduce suffering and restore hope when these children and youth need it the most.”

320,000 CHILDREN TO BENEFIT FROM NEW PROGRAMME DESIGNED THROUGH A BROAD INTERNATIONAL COALITION

Photo by Khalil Adwan

320,000 CHILDREN TO BENEFIT FROM NEW PROGRAMME DESIGNED THROUGH A BROAD-BASED JOINT PROGRAMME

10 April 2019, New York – Education Cannot Wait announces a US$11.7 million seed funding allocation to support the launch of a ground-breaking multi-year educational response programme aiming to reach 320,000 children in the State of Palestine.

Developed in coordination with the Ministry of Education of the Palestinian Authority and a broad-based partnership of UN agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations, the three-year programme aims to mobilize US$34.8 million in total finance from additional donors.

“Children and youth in the West Bank and Gaza face significant levels of violence in their daily life. Education is a life-line for them. We must invest in their education and their schools as safe spaces where they can learn, thrive and be empowered to realize their potentials. Their potentials are great, indeed,” says the Director of Education Cannot Wait, Yasmine Sherif.

The programme will target some of the most vulnerable and at-risk children and youth in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with special attention given to marginalized groups such as girls, children with disabilities, and vulnerable communities.

The programme will implement integrated initiatives to develop the capacity of teachers and schools, improve safety of learning environments, offer protection to children and teachers and integrate life-skills to improve the quality of education.

“One of the things that children have said to me over and over again in Palestine, is that they wish school were a place where they felt safe – a place where they could immerse themselves in learning, where they could be with their friends and not have to worry about the politics that surround them,” says Jamie McGoldrick, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories. “The seed funding provided by the Education Cannot Wait initiative is, perhaps, an excellent first step towards making this very reasonable wish a reality.”

Although the net enrolment in basic education in Palestine is over 95 per cent, access to pre-primary education and secondary education is lagging. The net enrolment rate in secondary schools is only 60.8 per cent (52.4 per cent boys and 69.5 per cent girls). Children with disabilities are even further behind, with only 5 out of 10 children aged 6-17 enrolled in school.

In 2017 alone, there were 169 incidents of education-related violations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Demolition and stop-work orders are affecting schools and pushing children away from formal education. Some students must walk 10 kilometres or more to get to and from school, putting their safety at risk. With parents worried to send their daughters to school, girls are particularly at risk.

The new multi-year response programme was designed in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, the UN Country Team, development partners and NGOs.

It aligns with the over-arching framework for humanitarian and development education interventions in Palestine through the government’s Education Sector Strategic Plan 2017-2022, as well as the Joint Advocacy and Protection Strategy, the UNRWA Mid-Term Strategy, and the Humanitarian Response Plan.

This new US$11.7 million catalytic grant builds on the achievements of a $3 million First Emergency Response allocation from Education Cannot Wait which reached over 250,000 children (including 135,000 girls) and was implemented through the UNRWA.

5 April 2019, Morocco – There are around 28 million out-of-school children in Member States of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). That’s more than the total population of Australia.

To address this growing challenge, Education Cannot Wait – a global fund for education in emergencies that seeks to mobilize US$1.8 billion by 2021 to reach 8.9 million children living in the midst of war, disaster and crisis – signed an agreement this week with the Islamic Development Bank and a wide range of stakeholders for a Global Education Coalition for Enrolling and Retaining 28 million out-of-school children in OIC member countries by 2021.

The declaration was signed at the 44th Annual Meeting of the IsDB Group, and provides a pathway to reach the Sustainable Development Goal for universal and equitable education (SDG4).

The declaration builds on momentum to address the growing needs of many OIC member states that are struggling to meet the needs of growing populations in the midst of poverty, natural disasters, and local and regional protracted crises.

“Prioritizing education in OIC countries is becoming more and more urgent, especially in countries where escalating crises are threatening the stability of an entire region,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait. “There is an urgent need to enhance the quality and inclusion in education, and to reopen thousands of schools in OIC countries like Afghanistan, Niger, Syria, Yemen, and many others.”

Several OIC countries are also affected by large-scale refugee crises and internally displaced populations that require urgent action.

Education Cannot Wait, along with a broad coalition of international actors, UN agencies, civil society, on-the-ground implementing agencies, national governments, the private sector, donors and financial institutions such as the Islamic Development Bank are building and supporting both first emergency responses and multi-year resilience programmes for several OIC countries, including Palestine, Bangladesh (Rohingya crisis), Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Uganda, Syria and Yemen.

There 75 million children in urgent need of educational support in crisis settings worldwide. Approximately 60 per cent of the education humanitarian caseload in 2018 (31 million children) were living in 19 crisis-affected OIC member countries.

Through its US$153 million investment portfolio, Education Cannot Wait is already reaching 1.4 million of the most marginalized children and youth in crisis settings, including 10 OIC countries.

5 March 2019, New York – The global charity Theirworld announced today a new US$2.85 million (2.52 million euros) contribution to Education Cannot Wait to support the rapid deployment of education assistance to refugee, displaced and vulnerable children caught in some of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Amsterdam, 4 March 2019: The Chair of Theirworld, Sarah Brown, receiving a generous grant from the Dutch Postcode Lottery at the annual Goed Geld Gala in Amsterdam.

This contribution was made possible through a US$3.57 million (3.15 million euros) grant from the Dutch Postcode Lottery to Theirworld for the global charity to support education in emergencies which was announced at the annual Goed Geld Gala in Amsterdam on Monday. Theirworld will direct US$2.85 million (2.52 million euros) of this generous grant to be delivered in partnership with Education Cannot Wait, launching a unique public-private partnership between the lottery, and Education Cannot Wait. As part of the new partnership, Theirworld’s Safe Schools Framework will provide guidance on how investments in safe schools and learning environments can be made more effective.

“We are more impactful by working together, and the award by the Dutch Postcode Lottery will allow us to not only deliver education to the most marginalised children, but leverage-up the funding through campaigning to have a multiplier effect for children,” said Sarah Brown, Chair of Theirworld.

Education Cannot Wait brings together a wide coalition of partners. Through the Fund’s innovative investment modalities, bilateral and multilateral donors, foundations and companies, governments, United Nations agencies and civil society organizations work together to mobilize new education financing and to deploy joint programmes that span across humanitarian and development aid sectors.

“The funding will be used to provide rapid education assistance in places where it is needed most” said Justin van Fleet, Theirworld’s President. “This new partnership will allow us to support thousands of children living in refugee camps who are not in school – where we need to provide education quickly so they are not part of the lost generation – while we also finding the longer-term solutions so all children can reach their full potential.”

Gordon Brown, United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education & Chair of the ECW High-Level Steering Group (HLSG)

This contribution by Theirworld and the Dutch Postcode Lottery joins contributions by business partners through the Global Business Coalition for Education and Dubai Cares, another major education philanthropist. It is the second largest single private contribution to date to Education Cannot Wait – a new global fund that seeks to mobilize US$1.8 billion by 2021 to provide access to education for girls and boys living in war zones, conflict and disasters. Some of Theirworld’s funding will be placed in challenge grants to be matched by other private contributors to multiply the impact.

“We are profoundly grateful to Theirworld for this contribution to Education Cannot Wait, and to the Dutch Postcode Lottery for making this possible. This is an important signal for other private foundations looking to support educational initiatives. It sets an example for other donors to follow through and we hope to leverage this funding with additional public-private partnerships”, said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait.

Education Cannot Wait’s investments have already reached more than 1 million children in crisis such as the recent tsunami in Indonesia, escalating violence in North-East Nigeria, ongoing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and the Central African Republic, and massive refugee influxes in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Uganda. However, much more remains to be done, with 75 million children in urgent need of educational support in emergencies and protracted crisis worldwide.

“Education needs to be this generation’s moonshot and this funding from the Postcode Lottery will allow us to mobilise enough people, partners and resources so that every refugee child is at school” said van Fleet. “We will look for the hardest to reach children in emergencies and keep a watching brief on all hotspots where children’s education is at risk – from the Greek Aegean Islands, Venezuela and Syria to the Central African Republic and beyond.”

After years of campaigning, including by Theirworld’s cohort of 1,000 Global Youth Ambassadors, the Education Cannot Wait fund was established in 2016 at the World Humanitarian Summit to provide education to the millions of children and youth who have lost out on education because of war, disasters and crisis. The Fund’s investments focus on increasing access to quality and equitable education in safe and protective learning environments for the most marginalized and vulnerable children, with a special attention to girls, children with disabilities and minorities.

“It is thanks to the voices of young people across the world that education is becoming a global priority for all of humanity – regardless of borders. Education Cannot Wait will quickly translate this generous funding into concrete delivery of education to refugee and displaced children with our new partner Theirworld,” said Sherif.

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Notes to Editors:

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) is the first global fund dedicated to education in emergencies. It was launched by international humanitarian and development aid actors, along with public and private donors, to address the urgent education needs of 75 million children and youth in conflict and crisis settings. ECW’s investment modalities are designed to usher in a more collaborative approach among actors on the ground, ensuring relief and development organizations join forces to achieve education outcomes. Education Cannot Wait is hosted by UNICEF. The Fund is administered under UNICEF’s financial, human resources and administrative rules and regulations, while operations are run by the Fund’s own independent governance structure. For more information: www.educationcannotwait.org

Theirworld is a global charity which unleashes the potential of the next generation. Every child deserves the best start in life, a safe school to learn in, and skills for the future. We analyse complex systems to identify the barriers to progress and then use our tools of campaigning, innovation projects and partnership building to unlock the innovation, finance, political will and inclusion necessary to create change from the top down and bottom up.

The Global Business Coalition for Education, an initiative of Theirworld, serves as the business community’s social impact advisor, combining the expertise of education and business to develop customised programs and identify investments, partnerships, and opportunities that will have the greatest impact for children and youth.

The Nationale Postcode Loterij (The Dutch Postcode Lottery) is the biggest charity lottery in the Netherlands. Since the start in 1989, the Dutch Postcode Lottery has contributed over 5.5 billion euros to charity organisations dedicated to ‘people’ and ‘planet.’ It now supports 112 charities worldwide and plays a pioneering role in the quest for a fair and enterprising, green and responsible world.

THE GOVERNMENT OF CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC, EDUCATION CANNOT WAIT, AND A WIDE COALITION OF DONORS AND PARTNERS LAUNCH US$77.6 MILLION EDUCATION PROGRAMME FOR 900,000 CHILDREN

WITH A CATALYTIC US$6.5 MILLION IN SEED FUNDING FROM EDUCATION CANNOT WAIT, THE PROGRAMME WILL BE A ‘FOUNDATION OF PEACE, SECURITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT’

27 February 2019, Bangui – The Government of the Central African Republic and Education Cannot Wait launched a three-year education programme today that will reach an estimated 900,000 children – half of whom are girls – and address the violence and displacement that have left nearly half a million children out of school in the country.

“Education will build the foundation of peace, security and economic development for the people of the Central African Republic,” said Mr. Aboubakar Moukadas-Noure, Central African Republic Minister of Education. “By providing girls and boys with safe learning spaces, qualified teachers, learning materials, school meals, counseling support and other services, this bold and comprehensive programme signals a new age of progress in the Central African Republic. Our children deserve an education. If we are ever to end hunger, violence, displacement and poverty in our country, truly, their education cannot wait.”

The programme benefits from an initial investment of US$6.5 million for 2019-2020 from Education Cannot Wait, a new global fund for education in crisis. The fund is looking to catalyze US$1.8 billion by 2021 to address the needs of children in crisis-affected countries such as the Central African Republic.

Building on the successes of a 12-month US$6 million First Emergency Response financed by Education Cannot Wait, the programme seeks to mobilize US$77.6 million over the next three years. Education Cannot Wait has indicatively committed an additional US$6.5 million per year for the second and third years of the programme, dependent on successful results and availability of funds.

“The global community must step up to fund educational responses in the Central African Republic,” said Graham Lang, Senior Education Advisor at Education Cannot Wait. “The challenges to overcome for children in the country to have universal access to quality education may be immense. But the resilience of these children is even greater. Education is the key that can empower them to tap into this strength to realize their potential and become agents of positive change. Without education, there can be no sustainable recovery, reconciliation and peace.”

The Central African Republic (CAR) is one of the world’s most unstable countries. Widespread violence has had a heavy toll on the population, with one out of four Central African uprooted by the conflict and over two-third of the population in need of humanitarian assistance. Girls and boys are particularly affected, with reports of separated children, sexual violence, forced marriage and early pregnancies, and forced recruitment into armed groups. Since 2017, 89 attacks against schools have been reported while 20 per cent of schools remain closed.

“The programme will target displaced children and host communities with comprehensive efforts to increase access to education, improve retention and ensure education continuity, improve the quality of learning and teaching, and establish safe, protective and inclusive learning environments” Lang said.

As part of Education Cannot Wait’s efforts to strengthen links between humanitarian and development aid efforts, the programme connects actors from across the government, UN organizations, national and international NGOs and the private sector.

Key Facts & Figures on the Multi-Year Resilience Programme

With transitional classes, the rehabilitation and construction of over 1000 classrooms, and the distribution of 320,000 school kits, the ECW investment in the overall multi-year programme seeks to get over 360,000 out of school children back in protective and safe learning environments, with the goal of reintegrating 90 per cent of the country’s out of school children into the formal education system.

To reach children in remote locations, an innovative radio education programme is expected to reach around 300,000 girls and boys. It also looks to test cash transfer programmes and will connect with the World Food Programme to implement school feeding programmes in 35 schools.

Without pay, most teachers have left their posts in CAR, and the educational system primarily relies on untrained community teachers, which comprise over half the teaching force. The programme will provide training and incentives to 12,000 teachers – 35 per cent of whom are female – with the goal of providing better education, keeping children in school and equipping teaching personnel to help children deal with the scars of war, violence and displacement.

Only one in four girls in CAR are considered literate. The programme seeks to increase the participation of girls in formal and non-formal education by 5 per cent per year. Girls-only sanitary facilities and comprehensive campaigns on sexual education and girl’s rights are part of the programme’s overall efforts to get more girls back in school. The programme will also support 90,000 girls and boys in obtaining official documentation.

The Government of Afghanistan, Education Cannot Wait, UNICEF and a coalition of UN, NGO partners and donors launch a multi-year education response programme to benefit ½ million children annually

Kabul, Afghanistan, 21 February 2019 – Today, the Government of Afghanistan, the Education Cannot Wait, global fund for education in crisis, and UNICEF launched a multi-year (2018 – 2021) education response programme, for which an initial US$ 22 million has been secured. The new programme will support the government’s policy on community based-education and improve access to safe and reliable education for 500,000 most vulnerable children, including 325,000 girls, in Afghanistan annually.

During the past decade, Afghanistan has been making progress in improving children’s access to education. Primary school enrollment rate increased from 1 million to 8.5 million between 2002 and 2019. Yet, violence, poverty and drought are among the many issues that threaten to reverse these gains. Approximately 3.7 million children remain out-of-school. Girls and children with disabilities are especially vulnerable. About 60 per cent of the out-of-school children are girls, and only 5 per cent of children with disabilities are able to access education.

Only half of the schools in Afghanistan are housed in buildings, and 1,000 schools remain inactive or closed due to security issues. Reports of attacks on schools have increased significantly during 2018, putting children at risk of injury, increased violence and threats of dropping of out-of-school.

The ECW programme in Afghanistan will contribute to reducing the number of out-of-school children in Afghanistan by identifying the most vulnerable boys and girls who have been affected by emergencies, and providing them with immediate learning opportunities. Using community-based and innovative initiatives over a three-year period, access to quality education will increase particularly for girls, and at the same time teachers and community members will be key stakeholders in the process.

“Today’s education provides the foundation for tomorrow’s economic recovery and growth and supports society as a whole”. says Dr. Mohammad Mirwais Balkhi, Minister of Education of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. “This new programme is part of our commitment to ensure that every girl and boy in Afghanistan are in school and learning by the year 2030.”

The multi-year response programme, whose total cost is US$ 157 million is facilitated by Education Cannot Wait and is implemented by a broad coalition of international and national organisations[1]. Building on the significant progress made through Afghanistan’s first emergency response in providing most vulnerable children access to schools, the programme aspires to raise over US$ 35 million for unmet needs in the first year.

“The Government of Sweden, and its people are committed to supporting the most vulnerable girls’ and boys’ education,” says Ambassador Tobias Thyberg, Embassy of Sweden in Afghanistan, who is representing the significant donor country to this programme. “Through innovative community-based approaches, we can help retain school attendance, improve quality of education, and create a safe and protective learning environment.”

This programme resonates with the aims of the Ministry of Education Girls’ Education Policy to remove barriers to education for all Afghan girls and women; to close the gender gap in the school enrollment of boys and girls, and to bring out-of-school girls into the education system; and to undertake affirmative action for girl students and female education personnel.
“This is a new way of working in delivering education in emergencies, by bridging humanitarian and development aid efforts. Only by working together can we achieve universal education by 2030,” says Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait. “The girls and boys of Afghanistan have suffered enough and have a right to develop their potentials to rebuild this war-torn country. Today, we have an opportunity to invest in them through quality education, to empower them to fulfill their full potential and that of their country. Let us seize it, sustain it and never let go of it.”

Urgent appeal for new funding for lost generation of 30+ million displaced and refugee young people

** Two major programmes launched this month to help the 75 million children without education trapped in emergencies and crises

Gordon Brown, the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, speaking at the United Nation headquarters in New York said:

“I am here today to speak up for the 99 percent of the world’s young refugees – the lost generation who are now becoming, to us, the invisible generation – who will never get a place in college or in higher education. And to speak for the 80 percent of refugee teenagers who will never get a secondary education.

A lost generation is not only identified by empty classrooms, silent playgrounds and short, unmarked graves. A lost generation is one where hope dies in those who live.

The urgency comes as 2019 is starting with escalating crises:

the estimated 3 million exodus from Venezuela – the largest in the history of Latin America and the Caribbean;

the half a million out-of-school children living in the Central African Republic (CAR);

the need to reopen 1,000 schools in Afghanistan where there are still 3.7 million out-of-school children, more than 2 million of them girls;

and the ongoing refugee crises as result of the Rohingya, Syria, Yemen and South Sudan conflicts.

The desolation of the lost generation is so extreme that there have been reports last autumn from the Moria refugee camp, where there is no formal education on offer to thousands of young people, that two young boys had attempted suicide. At ten, when life should be in front of you – full of hope and excitement at every new dawn – young boys are so devoid of hope that they attempted to take their own lives.

These young people are no longer only the lost generation, they are the invisible generation. And we must do more.

On Thursday February 21, the Education Cannot Wait Fund (ECW) – headed by Yasmine Sherif – and a coalition of partners will launch a program for safe and reliable education for 500,000 children in Afghanistan, including 325,000 girls.

The following week, on 27 February in the Central African Republic, ECW, the government and a coalition of partners will launch a new three-year education response program to reach an estimated 900,000 children – half of whom are girls – to address the violence and displacement that has left nearly half a million children out of school.

This follows the multi-year program in Uganda, launched in September, to help with the influx of South Sudanese refugees, which has already brought $70 million in additional resources through the coordinated multi-year approach.

ECW aims to catalyse a total $1.8 billion in education financing by 2021. This includes mobilizing $570 million by 2021 for the Trust Fund which will support rapid responses, global goods and seed funding investments to catalyse an additional $1.1 billion of in-country financing for multi-year programmes to be rolled out in ECW’s 25 priority countries.

Current investments will soon reach 2.5 million children – with 1 million children covered by the end of 2018 and 1.4 million in new programs announced by the end of this month.

Already ECW has invested $134.5 million in 19 crisis-affected countries, including in 16 emergency responses.

It is time to count the cost of a decade of disruption:

12 million child refugees and rising

More than 30 million displaced children in total – with Venezuela, CAR, the DRC, South Sudan, Pakistan, Myanmar and Syria some of the biggest numbers

75 million children with education disrupted because of conflict and emergency

People – children – are not broken just by the wave that submerges the life vest or the convoy that does not make it to the besieged town. They are broken by the absence of hope – the soul-crushing certainty that there is nothing ahead for which to plan or prepare, not even a place in school.

What holds them back is not just their location, their homelessness, and their poverty – but the death of their dreams.

The only way to reach the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of every child at school is for a child’s real passport to the future stamped in the classroom – and not at a border check post.

So today I propose:

First, let us expand Education Cannot Wait and recognize that committing to the SDG on education for all means committing to education without borders – the right of even the stateless and the displaced child to a quality education.

And second, for the long-term, we must support the International Finance Facility for Education, which is designed to serve the 700 million children and youth living in lower-middle-income countries, where the majority of out-of-school and displaced children reside. The facility is advancing rapidly with a high-level event scheduled in April where prospective donors will agree to constitute what could be a $10 billion fund this year.

According to UNHCR, the number of forcibly displaced people is 68.5 million. Among them are nearly 25.4 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18. Today 1 out of every 110 people in the world is displaced.
Source: UNHCR Global Trends,unhcr.org

A report from Médecins Sans Frontières says that MSF teams are seeing multiple cases each week of teenagers who have attempted to commit suicide or have self-harmed. In group mental health activities for children (aged between six and 18 years) between February and June 2018, MSF teams observed that nearly a quarter of the children (18 out of 74) had self-harmed, attempted suicide or had thought about committing suicide. Other child patients suffer from panic attacks, anxiety, aggressive outbursts, constant nightmares or voluntarily become mute.

The report by Theirworld, Safe Schools: The Hidden Crisis, showed that by 2030, 622 million – nearly a third of all children that will be alive at that point – will live in countries where education is under threat from war, endemic high violence, or environmental threats. In the absence of increased investment and delivery of safe schools and learning environments, three of every four young people in these countries are projected to be unequipped with the skills to participate fully in society and the economy.

Education Cannot Wait is the first global movement and fund dedicated to education in emergencies and protracted crises. It was established during the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 by international humanitarian and development aid actors, along with public and private donors, to help reposition education as a priority on the humanitarian agenda, usher in a more collaborative approach among actors on the ground and foster additional funding to ensure that every crisis-affected child and young person is in school and learning. Based on the recognition that continuous access to quality learning is a priority for children and families affected by conflicts, natural disasters and displacement and that no organisation can do it alone, ECW comes as a ground-breaking initiative bringing together public and private partners eager to work together differently and mobilise the funding required to deploy immediate and sustainable programmes tailor-made to the educational needs of these children.www.educationcannotwait.org

ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL FACILITY FOR EDUCATION (IFFED)

The International Finance Facility for Education is a groundbreaking way to finance education in countries around the world. By multiplying donor resources and motivating countries to increase their own investments, the Facility will unleash tremendous new funding streams for education. The Facility has the power to help tens of millions of children go to school and prepare millions more young people for the future of work.

The Facility is a recommendation of the Education Commission, put forward in The Learning Generation report released in September 2016. In the first round of funding, donor countries will provide the Facility with about $2 billion in guarantees, which will then be leveraged to create up to about $8 billion in new financing. By blending this financing with grant funding, the Facility would help mobilize more than $10 billion for education. www.educationcommission.org

NEW OPEN-UNICEF PORTAL PROVIDES COMPREHENSIVE INFORMATION ON FLOW OF FUND’S INVESTMENT FROM DONOR TO POOLED FUND

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) is pleased to announce a new transparency mechanism that provides up-to-date and comprehensive information on the flow of the Fund’s investments from donors to our pooled fund, and from the pooled fund to grantees. The portal features a map detailing the countries where the Fund invested and current levels of disbursements to grantees in UN Agencies, International NGOs and National NGOs.

Education Cannot Wait is a global fund hosted by UNICEF, and the portal is part of the Open UNICEF Portal. The Fund is administered under UNICEF’s financial, human resources and administrative rules and regulations, while operations are run by the Fund’s own independent governance structure.

Transparency is an essential component of Education Cannot Wait’s core objectives, and will be a cornerstone in achieving the goals outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. For education in crisis and Sustainable Development Goal 4, transparency means faster response, more coordinated approaches and linked tracking from end-to-end. It’s this system-wide approach that’s necessary to connect more partners and crowd-in the resources, knowledge and tools needed to fill the US$8.5 billion funding gap that’s left 75 million girls and boys living in crisis behind.

THE VALUE OF POOLED FUNDS

The new portal provides Education Cannot Wait’s key stakeholders with an easy-to-understand visualization of the true value of a pooled fund concept. The idea behind this is simple. By partnering together, donors generate a bigger impact – and a more comprehensive approach – than stand-alone initiatives. This pooled approach also ensures more sustainability for these investments. Small contributions work together with larger contributions to reach scale and impact with invested funds. It also reduces transactional costs as pooled resources are bundled to reach common goals.

This is a positive step forward in Education Cannot Wait’s transparency efforts. At this early stage, the current transparency portal captures the resources being channeled through the global trust fund hosted by UNICEF. One of the core components of the Education Cannot Wait model is to catalyze additional resources at the country level through country-level co-financing, private-sector and civil-society engagement, and through donor-aligned investments that will be mobilized through the Education Cannot Wait-facilitated multi-year resilience programmes. As these multi-year resilience programmes advance, the Fund will work with its partners to track the flow of these funds and ensure greater transparency.

In the end, the goal of transparency is simple: Ensure funds reach the people who need them most through more comprehensive, coordinated and integrated approaches. These efforts toward transparency align with the New Way of Working and the UN Secretary General’s vision for increased efficiency across the UN system.

“We are reforming our development system to become much more field-focused, well-coordinated and accountable to better assist countries through the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – our contribution to a fair globalization. And to underpin all these efforts we are pursuing sweeping management reform – to simplify procedures and decentralize decisions, with greater transparency, efficiency and accountability.” – UN Secretary General António Guterres.

The project is part of a US$15m grant from the Education Cannot Wait global fund dedicated to education in emergencies and humanitarian crisis and will benefit 12,000 children.

Addis Ababa, 10 December 2018: A project to construct schools in refugee camps and host communities in Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz regions in Ethiopia has been launched. Part of a US$15 million two-year investment in refugee education in Ethiopia by Education Cannot Wait, the project will construct three new inclusive model secondary schools, 41 classrooms in eight secondary schools, and 84 classrooms in four primary schools. About 12,000 children from refugee camps and the surrounding host communities – half of them girls – are expected to benefit.

In a major boost to the education response of the Rohingya refugee crisis, the Education Cannot Wait (ECW) fund is allocating US$12 million to support 88,500 refugee and host community children and adolescents. The fund is being awarded to UNICEF, UNESCO and UNHCR to ensure a common vision for education and continued access to quality learning.

13 November 2018: Launch of the ECW-supported programme in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh

“Education is a long-term investment in any context. Within the Rohingya refugee crisis, education plays an even more vital role. It ensures children’s protection. It is also a lifeline of hope for children and young people living in a very unpredictable situation. ECW is making a major investment in their future,” says James Lynch, UNHCR Regional Representative and Acting Representative in Bangladesh.

The launch was announced from an ECW supported learning centre in the Rohingya refugee camps earlier today, in the presence of 50 children, parents, teachers, government, UN and NGO representatives.

For Amin and many others, time spent at the learning centre is the highlight of their day. Rohingya children attend classes for two hours each day to learn English, Burmese, mathematics and life skills. However, teaching hours will be expanded to four hours per day with the rollout of the new education programme.

“We are dealing with a refugee population which has been denied the right to education for a very long time. Over the past year, we have witnessed incredible changes in the children attending classes in the refugee camps. Children who were quiet and reserved have grown in confidence, they have learned new skills in a safe, protective environment and achieved a sense of normality. We must continue to nurture their talents and prospects for a brighter future,” says Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF Representative in Bangladesh.

Over 2,000 teachers will benefit from professional development programmes through the multi-year ECW grant to ensure quality education that can sustain and save lives, providing safe learning environments, psychosocial support for children and youth. In particular, the programme will focus on training female teachers and meeting the specific needs of girls and boys and of children and adolescents with disabilities. This includes measures to prevent and address gender-based violence.

In host communities, emphasis will be placed on strengthening education systems to improve quality in public schools. Cox’s Bazar has one of the highest rates in the country of primary and secondary age children out of school. The ECW grant will invest in strengthening access to education, retention of students and increasing performance levels.

“ECW’s support will enable us to enhance the quality of the education delivered. We will train more teachers with an improved syllabus and learning materials. We can expand the network of our reach to close the gap on the Rohingya children and youth we are currently unable to reach in the refugee camps,” highlights Beatrice Kaldun, UNESCO Representative in Bangladesh.

At the onset of the refugee crisis, ECW donated US$3 million to establish emergency education services in the Rohingya camps. This US$12 million contribution builds on the earlier support and aligns with a broader framework of support for education facilitated by ECW. The estimated additional cost to deliver this education program in 2019 is almost US$60 million. ECW is calling upon other donors and partners to step up to the plate and provide further financing to fill the gap.

“This funding builds on the first emergency investment made by Education Cannot Wait (ECW) during the initial months of the Rohingya arrivals in 2017. We will not give up on these children and youth now, as they start to recover from the painful experiences in the recent past. On the contrary, now is the time to sustain and expand their access to education, which also means to continue providing a healing and protective environment,” says Yasmine Sherif, Director of ECW.